


Never Cruel or Cowardly

by samchandler1986



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-06 13:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11036907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samchandler1986/pseuds/samchandler1986
Summary: Gallifrey. The long way round.[aka what Clara did next]





	1. A Way to Survive

Clara opens the door of the TARDIS to the sound of a wailing klaxon. They appear to have landed in some kind of service duct. Battered steel panels, dust and rust are the main features. Dull red light pulses intermittently along the ceiling.

Me follows her outside, bemused. “Where _are_ we?”

“I’m… not sure,” says Clara lightly. “Why don’t we go find out?”

“But you put in co-ordinates,” Me frowns, nonplussed. “Surely you—?”

“Yeah, well, I guess the TARDIS had other ideas… Are you coming?”

After a moment, Me smiles back. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Good.”

They fall into step, following the pulsing lights. There is a faint smell of smoke in the air. “We’re on a spaceship,” says Me.

“How can you tell?”

She shifts her feet. “Centripetal gravity.”

“You can feel it?”

“You can’t?”

Clara bites down her first reply, unexpectedly stung. “Guess I need more practice.”

“Ha.” Me laughs without humour. “I spent a decade on a colony ship once. By the end of it—” But whatever story she has to tell is interrupted by the runner, rounding the corner. He is fast; so fast Me’s cat-like twist out of his path is not quite quick enough. She sprawls in the dust and the boy stumbles too, rolling head over heels.

Clara pulls the irked immortal back onto her feet before venturing over to his prone form. “Are you okay?”

He is alien enough for it not to be immediately obvious—humanoid and bilaterally symmetrical—but there the similarities end. The still-rapid pumping of his chest is the only clear sign he is alive.

“Can you hear me?” she tries again.

“Crrriiik,” he says this time, through a beaked mouth.

Me rubs a bruised elbow pointedly. “The TARDIS isn’t translating.”

“I don’t—”

The boy sits up, a rapid-fire sequence of clicks and whistles clacking from his beak.

“I’m sorry,” begins Clara, “I don’t understand—”

“Who _are_ you?” he repeats. It’s a strange sensation, the clicks and whistles of his own language still audible underneath the English inserted by the TARDIS. “You’re not Keradish. What are you _doing_ here?”

“We’re… well, we’re just passing through. What’s, um, what’s all the noise about?”

“You mean you don’t _know_?”

“Like I said, we’re not from around here…”

“This is a Dead Zone now,” he says, and shakes himself. The movement is instinctive, a bird settling its feathers. “We’re all dead.”

“Really? What makes you say that?”

He points, unfolding a leathery wing as he does so. “Uh, the alarms? That klaxon means the life support is being switched off. Then they’ll vent us out into space”

“Right, right.” Clara relaxes slightly. “So, what are you doing about that?”

“About what?”

“The life support.”

He looks at her as if she has grown an extra head. “What _can_ I do about it?”

“Well, you were running somewhere,” Clara says, raising an eyebrow. “The dead generally don’t need to hurry.”

He holds her gaze for a moment with jewel-bright eyes, before looking away in shame. “Right,” he says. “Yeah. Um.” He clicks his beak. “It was just a rumour but I heard there’s a weakness in the lock in this sector. Thought I might be able to get through.”

“Down here?”

He nods, already stopped shoulders hunching further. “Yeah. Um.”

“What’s your name?” Clara asks, with that special school-teacher harmonic that tells a listener non-response isn’t an option.

“Perchik.”

“Perchik, nice to meet you. I’m Clara, this is Me. Tell me Perchik, how many other people are here in the Dead Zone?”

 “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Rough guess?” she snaps back.

Perchik hangs his head. “Hundreds. Maybe thousands.”

“And are you the only one that knows about the weak lock?”

“Yes.”

Clara risks a glance at Me, watching the unfolding drama with polite interest. That, perhaps, is the most disturbing things of all. “Why didn’t you tell?”

“You really _aren’t_ from around here, are you?”

“No, I’m not. Let me see if I can guess, then. One person, one person might just slip through the lock unnoticed. More than one…”

Perchik flexes his taloned feet. “Now you’re getting it.”

“Yes,” says Clara simply. “This. This is why the TARDIS landed here,” she adds to Me.

The immortal raises an impressive eyebrow, sceptical. “So we can save the day?”

“We’re part of the flow of events now. That’s what happens when you step outside. If you don’t want to join in you can go back to the TARDIS and wait for me there. I’ll drop you off wherever you want to go. But if you stay, here, and if you want to travel with me, this ironic detachment or whatever it is stops. Stops now.” Me looks taken aback, mouth opening to frame a suitable response Clara doesn’t care to hear. She ploughs on: “Take us to the lock, Perchik. Fast as you like.”

* * *

The lock is exactly that – a sealed bulkhead with a rusty handle. A worn control panel into which Perchik punches a number code, and then turns the wheel to open. At least that’s the idea. The metal shrieks and the handle sticks.

“That’s it then,” he says, hopelessly.

Clara suppresses the urge to roll her eyes, gripping the handle instead. “Maybe it just needs a bit of… persuasion,” she grimaces. But the door is truly stuck, even when Me adds her strength. “Hmm,” she says, supressing the urge to wish aloud for a sonic screwdriver.

The klaxon cuts out. There is a moment of ringing stillness in the sudden absence of constant noise. The red light dies, replaced by a faint green emergency bulb, no brighter than that of a sickly glow-worm. “What does that mean? Are we safe?”

Perchik slumps to the floor. “No,” he says softly. “Out of time. They’ve switched off the atmospheric scrubbers.” He closes his eyes, defeated.

“Ok, but we’ve surely got some residual air in a space this big. So, how long do we have before they vent?” She scans the corridor for something to hold on to in case of rapid decompression. “Maybe I can go back to the TARDIS and—”

“Clara?” wheezes Me.

“What?”

“I don’t think there’s a lot of residual air.” Her hand, compulsively, is clutching at her throat. “You can’t feel it, can you? You don’t need the oxygen.”

“But,” manages Clara, “But you’re _immortal_.”  

“Still human,” croaks Me. “Still need to breathe. I’ll… revive if you find… oxygen...” She falls to her knees.

 _Think_ , Clara wills, in the face of rising panic. All her brain seems to want to do is _list,_ the things she doesn’t have and needs. No space suit. No sonic screwdriver, or stupid sunglasses. No back-up plan. No clue what to do— _o_ _kay_ , _stop thinking. Start doing_.

She looks up and down the corridor again; at Me’s prone form slumped next to Perchik, and the dust carpeting the floor and the rusted panels lining the wall.

 _There is always a way to survive_ , she reminds herself. _You just have to find it._

And there it is. In the dark of the ruined corridor, in the absence of air and in the dying light, Clara Oswald smiles.  


	2. Always Like This

Me opens her eyes and takes in their dank surroundings. She sighs.

“You’re back,” says Clara, from the other side of their cell. “How do you feel?”

“I have quite a headache. You stopped them from venting the corridor, then?”

“I made a hole in the wall.”

“Ah.”

“They arrested us for vandalism.”

Me takes a moment to digest this. “I have to say, wherever we are, they seem to have… some rather misplaced priorities.”

“Mmm.”

“How long have we been here?”

“About three hours, I think.”

“Did they leave any food?”

“No.”

“Water?”

“Guess.”

“Great.” She drums her fingers on the rough metal of the cell floor. “Is it always like this?”

“Is what always like this?”

“Travelling with you.”

Clara grins. “You don’t want to stick around and find out?”

“Doesn’t look like I have much choice at the moment,” Me says, returning the smile shyly.  

They are interrupted by the clanking of the door; light spilling into the cell blinding after hours in the dark. “Forgive me,” says a woman, silhouetted in the frame. “This is no way to treat heroes.”

“They are _vandals_ ,” snaps a second voice, male, irritable, “and they will be punished as such.”

“Hush your nonsense Karabas. They have bought into the light a hideous crime.”

“A democratic decision decided by due process, we have no _right_ —”

“I said _hush_ ,” repeats the woman, more of a growl in her voice this time. “My name is Kerala. On behalf of the Khadanian Faction I thank you for your service to the Orb and welcome you. I have made arrangements for your release—”

“Temporary release,” huffs Karabas.

“— _hush!_ As I was saying, I have arranged your release and a recall of the Council to discuss the crimes of the Keradish Faction. What they have done to their citizens cannot go unpunished.”

“Thank you,” says Clara simply, master at bluffing on a bad hand. “Tell me, were there any other survivors?”

Kerala looks pained. “We believe about half the population of the Dead Zoned area will make a full recovery.”

“Half…” Clara manages, swallowing down the rising bile. “Half of…”

“What of our companion?” asks Me, as Clara reels. “What of Perchik?”

“He is receiving medical attention. His chances are good.” She indicates the corridor beyond the cell. “If you would follow me?”

* * *

There are raised voices audible behind the doors, a Council in disarray. Clara isn’t listening. The antechamber has a large window; more likely a view-screen than a real transparent surface if previous experience is anything to go by. In either case, the star-field beyond feels real enough, turning slowly under her hand, pressed against the glass.

Me looks up from her comm-screen. “Are you… okay?” she tries, the question clearly unfamiliar on her lips.

“No,” replies Clara softly. Everything until now has felt so straightforward, pages torn from a script she’s used to following. This is something else. The weight of hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives winked out. Lives she could have saved, if she was a little bit cleverer, a little bit quicker.

“There was nothing you could have done,” says Me; and the words are right even if her delivery is bald.

 _That used to be my line_ , Clara realises. _I used to stand over there and watch_ him _feel this guilt_. The realisation is another punch in the gut, and she almost laughs at her past self’s presumption, to try to offer him absolution. For a moment the need to see him, to speak to him, to _share_ this grief is almost overwhelming. She closes her eyes against tears she refuses to let fall and swallows the lump in her throat.

“I know.”

Me stands next to her, cataloguing the constellations. “I don’t recognise these stars,” she says.

“It’s a big Universe,” Clara offers.

“I know. But this is somewhere I’ve never stood, isn’t it?”

Brown eyes find grey. “Yes,” admits Clara. “I wanted to take you the one place even an immortal can’t go, not without a time machine. Backwards.”

“Where _are_ we?”

“I was aiming for Earth. Right at the very start. We’ve both had enough endings for a time. I thought we could watch our planet begin and then decide where to go next.”

“Instead the TARDIS bought us here. Interesting.”

“What did the computer tell you?”

Me almost winces. “Their records are a mess and the AI has basically gone senile. It’s a colony ship, from what I can tell, at least three hundred years into her voyage.”

“Where are they going?”

“The AI can’t remember. That’s part of the problem. Fail-safes were switched off decades ago, maintenance schedules abandoned. I don’t think they have anyone left who really understands how to run the ship’s systems. What I do know is they’re low on fuel, high on population and heading for a collision with a proto-planetoid within the next six months if they don’t change course.”

“Can they?”

“The AI has been trying to divert power to fire the thrusters. Trouble is they’re running on empty. I think that’s where this Dead Zoning has come in. Factions of their government are shutting down parts of the Orb to try and recoup power. It’s not enough. I’m not sure anything could be, at this point.”

“How many aboard?”

“The AI hasn’t been keeping a proper census—”

“Ball-park figure?”

Me blinks, waiting for the sentence to make sense. Clara wonders how the TARDIS has translated the colloquialism. Eventually she shrugs. “Three million?”  

Clara’s stomach swoops, in the ringing silence that follows. She supposes it’s a remembered response, brain filling in for the biochemical blank now her bodily systems are time looped. Knowing this doesn’t make it feel any easier. “Three million.”

“Give or take a margin of error. Say about fifteen percent.”

 _This isn’t want I wanted_ , Clara doesn’t say, studying the stars instead as if they can hold any answer. _I wanted spectacle and exploration. Not the lives of three million people held in my hands. I can’t do this._

“So,” says Me, “what do we do?”

How many times did she turn to the Doctor and ask that question? Did he ever feel like this, lost and afraid and so desperately alone?

_Did he ever feel anything else?_

“No,” she says, turning to her companion, face carefully blank. “That’s not the question. Not yet. We need to find out what _they_ can do.”  


	3. Clara's Storm Room

Perchik is sitting up in his hospital bed. He doesn’t look thrilled to see her.

“Oh,” he says. “It’s you again.”

“Yes,” smiles Clara, but it’s a borrowed grin, a shark’s smile learned from the Doctor “it’s me.  I brought you some grapes.”

Perchik takes the fruit equivalent bemusedly. “Why?”

“Tradition,” she blusters, “not really important right now. They’re good for you. I checked.”

“Right,” he manages, popping a small fruit into his beak in the hopes it will appease her. “Er, thanks. Was… was that everything?” He tries not to look too hopeful.

“I wanted to ask you a question, actually,” says Clara. “How did you know about that lock when no one else did?”

Perchik clicks his beak. “I dunno. Just lucky I suppose—”

“I saved your life. Are you _really_ going to lie to me?”

Perchik picks another dark berry from the bunch, plays with it for a moment, avoiding her stern gaze. “No,” he says, eventually, sulky, “I just don’t want there to be any more trouble.” He eats the grape, playing for more time. “My grandmother was maintenance, alright? We all got switched over to agricultural duties before I was even born, but she was trained in tech. And she wanted to train me. Did, a little bit. She thought the switch was…” He lowers his voice, clearly breaking taboo. “… She thought the switch was a bad idea. That the AI was becoming fallible.”

“How many maintenance crews are left?”

“Amongst the Keradish? None! We all became farmers to feed the Orb. They say the Khadanian faction kept up the traditions, but I’ve never seen a repair crew.” He is whispering again. “There are places up near the Rim where the irrigation systems have been dead for _decades_. Why else do you think they need so many of us just to carry water? The machines break and it’s the Keradish’s job to fill the breach. Just the way of it. Always has been.”

“Right,” she says absently. “I’ll bear that in mind. Enjoy the grapes, Perchik. Feel better.”

“Does it matter? The end of the Orb itself is only half a cycle away,” he mutters.

“What… did you say?”

He shrugs, an impressive movement given his wingspan. “It’s what the priests have been saying for ages. The Orb’s going to crash and kill us all anyway. No matter what we do.”

“How do they know?”

Another dismissive shrug. “Who knows? God tells them, maybe.”

 _Or the AI_ , she thinks, as she hurries to find Me.

* * *

“The Council are still in session,” says Me, above the shouting.

“Yes, I can hear that.”

“I think it’s got… worse. The Karadish delegation turned up about half an hour ago. They want their people back.”

“After they were about to space them? Not bloody likely!”

“Well, that’s Kerala’s view, but I don’t think Perchik was exactly representative of most of the rest of them, you know? They’re a bit… cultish. Think they’re going to meet their maker in preparation for some end-of-days reckoning.”

“Yeah, Perchik mentioned.” Clara slumps, boneless, into an uncomfortable armchair not well designed for an anthropoid.  “Okay. So they’re in a _mess_ , is the short summary.”

“I’m afraid so.”

 _What do we do now?_ The question hangs in the air again.

“We have to use the TARDIS,” says Clara slowly.

“We can’t lifeboat three million people to—”

“I know, I know. The timeline would fracture, crossing back and forth on ourselves like that. But we can give them a tow.”

“Clara, this ship is the size of a small planet. The TARDIS—”

“She can manage. The Doctor’s done it before. We’ll figure out a way.”

“Fine. Fine. Even assuming that we can engineer a solution using the TARDIS’s engines, we have a more practical problem. Between her and us is about a kilometre of corridor in hard vacuum, and we don’t have a human-compatible spacesuit.”

“ _What_?”

“Clara, I’m sorry. The Khadanian’s stopped the venting long enough to get everyone out, but the Dead Zone section was structurally compromised. They’ve had to seal the breach on this side and let it go.”  

Clara buries her face in her hands for a moment. “Right. Well, that’s not insurmountable, is it? I don’t need a space suit—”

“Clara, you don’t understand. This isn’t like last time. There’s no atmosphere at all now. No heating, no radiation shielding.”  

“Me… I know what hard vacuum means.”

“We have no idea what it will do to you.”

“Yeah, we do,” she says slowly. “As much damage as it can in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Over and over again. That’s how this works, isn’t it? It’s why I can move, and talk and… cry. I reset over and over and over.”

“We can’t know that, Clara,” Me says urgently. “And if you die…?”

“Then you figure out some other way to save them and take my body back to Trap Street. Complete the loop.” She stands, warming to her theory now. “You know I’m right because the Universe hasn’t ended, look.”  

Me makes a white knuckled fist. “You are every _bit_ as reckless as him, do you know that?” she snaps, and a tiny part of Clara rejoices to finally see her lose her iron-clad self-control, the detachment of a superior being with no stake in the game.

“Yeah,” says Clara. “I know. I thought you did too. We’re the hybrid, remember? Both of us.”

“I can’t let you do this—”

“Is there an alternative?”

“There must be! Just let me think—”

“You’ve got about eight minutes.”

“Eight—why eight minutes?”

“Because that’s how long it takes to walk from here the nearest airlock,” replies Clara, turning on her heel.

* * *

_“Doctor!”_

_She is standing in the console room of the TARDIS, the familiar tick and whirr of the ship just audible._

_“Oh, hello,” he says, not looking up from the switches he is flicking back and forth; not at first. He chances a glance after a long moment, and smiles. It’s a genuine smile, creasing the corners of his eyes, albeit fleeting._

_“Wasn’t I just_ _—?” The penny drops and her heart sinks. “This isn’t_ real _, is it?”_

_He frowns up at the moving console. “What do you mean by that?”_

_“I was just… outside.”_

—inching her way down frozen corridors, the absence of pressure like a thousand needles stabbing at her flesh; her innards burning as bubbles form in her blood vessels—

_“I’m hallucinating.”_

_“If you say so.”_

_She sighs, as they circle the console in their old familiar way; comes to a stop in front of the screen. “I want to talk to you. I want to tell you what I’m doing. How I’m going to save them.”_

_“Oh,” he says, “do you know now?”_

_“No,” she admits, a perverse bit of humour escaping through her teeth. “Not a clue.” He raises an eyebrow, across the console. She tilts her head, considering. “… That’s how this story is going to start, at least. When I tell it to you. When I see you again. Tell you how we escaped, make you laugh.”_

_“What happens next?”_

_“I reach the TARDIS,” she says, more certain now._

—and somewhere, in reality, her fingers close around spurs of broken metal; pilot her across an expanse of blown-out corridor; back to the endless starry night beyond—


	4. Paradox

The console is making a _qu-quok_ sound—not quite cloister bell levels of distress—but a warning nonetheless. Clara opens her eyes to an unfamiliar white ceiling, particularly disconcerting when underscored by the sound of home. It takes a moment for her to realise where she is. Lying on the floor of her TARDIS.

“Oh,” she says. To herself or to the ship, she isn’t sure. “I made it then.”

The console hums in response. She staggers over to see what all the fuss is about. The TARDIS’s primary concern failing structural integrity in this part of the Orb, closely followed by the likelihood of fiery destruction upon impact with the nearby proto-planetoid in six months.

“I know that,” she says, “I need to change their course.”

The screen winks into life in response, complex swirls of Gallifreyan text.

Clara folds her arms. “Okay, I can’t read that.”

 _Qu-quok._ The screen snows with static. On the console a hatch opens, something rising upwards from the inside. A black panel, shaped like a hand. The implication is clear. Still, Clara hesitates. The Doctor’s TARDIS took a long time to warm up to her. What’s to say this machine is any different? Perhaps the panel is nothing more than a recall button that will whisk her straight back to Gallifrey and impending doom. _Three million people_ , she reminds herself, and that makes the decision for her. Gallifrey be damned. Anyway, she can always steal another TARDIS, if push comes to shove.

She presses her palm down. The panel feels warm, like stone baked in midday sun. Crawling static moves the hairs on the back of her hand. Then a sharp needle-pain; she winces and tries to pull away. An invisible force holds her hand in place, the pain now intense as it worms up her arm, into her neck. A final agonising spasm and she is suddenly released.

She clasps her hand to chest, gasping. “What was _that_ about?” she manages, before the screen switches back on of its own volition. Now the text is readable. “Some sort of psychic link?”

The TARDIS merely purrs in response.

Turning to the task at hand, Clara flicks switches, runs simulations. She’s watched the Doctor tow ships before by switching on systems _here_ and _here._ The screens roll with numbers, blurring. _Ding._ Success! She has just enough time to make a fist of celebration when the Cloister Bell begins chiming.

“Now what?!”

* * *

Me pokes her head through the TARDIS doors, to find Clara slumped at the console. “Ah. I’m glad you’ve survived,” she says, in her oddly stilted way. “Are you… okay?”

“No,” says Clara, hollow.

“What did you find?”

“The TARDIS engines can drag them away from their collision course.”

“...But?”

“The TARDIS won’t do it.”

“Fail safes?”

“The ultimate kind.”

Me steps over to the console, presses a button or two. She frowns. “A paradox?”

“So big the web of time would unravel.”

“How?” Me asks, uncomprehending.

Clara hunches her shoulders, thoroughly miserable. “It’s Earth, Me. The proto-planet. The massive collision that will create the moon and give her tides. Allow life to develop… This is it. If we stop it from happening, humanity will never evolve. We won’t exist. Therefore, we can never come here and change events… paradox loop. The timeline collapses.”

Me blinks. Once upon a time, Clara senses, she would have looked stricken. Now, she blinks. Processes, accepts. Moves on. How long, Clara wonders, would she have to live to become like that?

_Too long._

“Well, we have the TARDIS at least. If there’s nothing we can do I suppose we should… move on.”

“No.”

“Clara—”

“No. We don’t walk away. That’s not what we do.”

“That’s not what _he_ did,” Me replies levelly. “You don’t have to make the same choices.”

“Some things aren’t a choice, Me. This is one of them.”

“But if there’s nothing we can do—”

“There are lifeboats.”

“What?”

“In the outer hull. This ship was never built to land. I mean, it’s half the size of a planet, how could it? So, there are lifeboats. Short range transport ships. For when they reached their promised land. They’ll need to work together – those that still have enough technical knowledge to keep them flying and those that can make the gardens grow so they have air to breathe and food to eat. But… they don’t all have to die here.”

Me opens and closes her mouth a few times. “It’s a nice idea Clara,” she says eventually, “but you’ll never convince them to do it. Trust me, I’ve lived through enough apocalypses. If it’s a choice between doing something different and difficult, and cleaving to the old ways and hoping things work out… Well. People don’t like change.”

Clara shrugs. “We have to at least try.”

Me folds her arms. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” Me repeats. “I’m sorry but I’ve lived an awful long time with the consequences of bad decisions made for noble reasons. This is one of them. This isn’t our fight, Clara. If we’d never come here, we’d never know. Just because we happened to stumble across this doomed ship doesn’t make it our responsibility.”

There is a long pause. “Okay.”

Me looks nonplussed, clearly expecting a longer argument. “Okay?”

“You don’t have to help,” Clara explains. “Stay in here until I’m finished. Then I’ll take you anywhere in the Universe you want to be dropped off.” 

"That's not..." manages Me, to Clara's retreating back. The doors slam shut behind her. 


	5. Rescue

“Kerala, I need you to be honest with me.”

Her name causes the councillor to stir from her perch. “Clara,” she says, voice cracking. Whether from sleep or despair, Clara cannot tell. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in—”

“How many technicians do you have that can actually maintain ship systems?”

The Councillor shakes out her feathers. “Why do you need to know?”

“Your spaceship is going to crash.”

“No, the AI… it’s _confused_. It’s done this before—”

“It might be confused but it’s correct about this. Dead Zoning is someone’s attempt to find enough power to correct your course. Get you out of the way.”

Kerala looks down. “I… am aware.”

Clara managed to swallow her shock. “Are you involved?”

The councillor shakes her head forcefully. “Opposed… But overruled.”

The cogs turn in Clara’s head for a moment. “Karabas?”

“Amongst others. There is still a relationship between us and the Keradish at a diplomatic level—”

“I don’t care,” says Clara, the words as much a surprise to her as Kerala. “I don’t need to know. It isn’t going to work. Whatever you do, this ship will crash into a proto-planet half a light-year from here. How many technicians do you have?”

Oil drop eyes blink, inscrutable. Just as she is about to lose patience, the councillor cracks. “Approximately four thousand.”

Clara lets out the breath she has been holding out of habit. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Why do you ask?”

“There is a way out. There are _lifeboats_ , Kerala. But they’re up near the outer hull, and a lot of them are badly damaged.”

“I can’t just—”

“Listen. There’s more you need to know. You’re going to be on the boats for a while if you want to reach anywhere habitable. You’ll need to take some of your gardens with you if you’re to survive.”

Kerala clicks her beak, irritated now. “You realise what you’re saying, of course? The Keradish and the Khadanians—”

“Yes. You’ll need to work together if you’re to survive. All of you,”

“Even if you’re right… there’s no way I’ll be able to convince everyone of what you say.”

“I know,” says Clara. The realisation weighs heavy on her conscience but she recognises the truth of the matter. “But… we might be able to convince _some_. We have to try.”

There is a long moment before Kerala’s head jerks in a nod. “They’ll need to see some convincing evidence.”

“That I should be able to provide.”

* * *

Me stands still for a long moment after the TARDIS doors swish shut. Anger, she thinks, might be the name of this emotion. It’s been a while. Anger needs other people, and she spent a long time without any company watching the stars die. She can’t quite remember what comes next. Shouting possibly. Or punching something.

Instead, she turns to the console. Not much point in shouting, and punching Clara isn’t going to achieve very much given her newfound invulnerability. No, better to cut this problem off at the root—

_Qu-quok-qu-quok._

Her hand stills over the console. There’s something vaguely _reprimanding_ about the noise the TARDIS has made, which is nonsense of course—

“ _Ouch_!” The console has shocked her with static as she tries to enter in new co-ordinates. “What the—?” she manages, as the hand brake winds of its own accord. “This is ridiculous.” She strides towards the doors, which remain stubbornly shut. “I’m not your _prisoner_!” she finds herself shouting. Yes, anger, this is definitely anger. She remembers now. “Let me out! Clara! _Clara_!”

No response. She doubts, on reflection, that her pilot can hear. A new plan required then. She retrieves the TARDIS handbook from under the console instead, to find a work-around. She isn’t sure how long she has been absorbed in her reading when there is a muffled _bang_ from outside.

“Screen on.”

This command the TARDIS deigns to fulfil, showing her the bland interior of the antechamber. Another bang, louder this time. The console is suddenly blinking with warning lights, and the screen shuts off.

“What are you playing at…?” she asks, tapping in queries.

The screen returns for a moment, white lettering on black. ++Siege Mode Engaged++

“What does _that_ mean?” Me asks, as the monitor dies again and the lights dim.

* * *

Perchik is sleeping when the view-screen in his hospital room flicker to life of its own accord.

“—mergency broadcast. Security forces are describing the assault on the council chambers by Keradish forces as unprecedented and citizens are asked to remain inside while the situation is bought under control. The attack is thought to be linked to Councillor Kerala’s extraordinary claims that the Orb faces imminent destruction.”

The footage switches from the stricken broadcaster, images of the council chambers in flame, to Kerala making her announcement: “I have put the telemetry on the Public Network so all may see and judge the veracity for themselves. I repeat, this is not a message of despair but a call for unity. We can survive. But to do so we must work together and reach the lifeboats.”

“Councillor Kerala, speaking earlier. It is not known if she is amongst the confirmed casualties—“

A noise outside makes Perchik kill the feed. _Tok-tok_. Soft, ignorable sounds. Unless you lived through the Rim riots. Perchik recognises them for what they are – frangible rounds being fired, probably a few streets away. Soft bullets that won’t breach the hull. He scrambles to his feet, pulling on his clothes, collecting his belongings—

Then he screams, as the window shatters on impact of a ballistic Clara Oswald. She rolls inside the room, rising from the smashed glass wincing. Not quite up to speed on current events. “Shit,” she mutters, “that _really_ hurt.”

“You should be _dead_ ,” hisses Perchik, as her eyes unglaze. “What _are_ you?”

“I told you. I’m Clara. And I’m here to rescue you.”

“Rescue me?”

“Yeah. Come on, we’ve got a lifeboat to catch.”

“What makes you think—?”

“I know you want to survive. Right now, I’m your best chance for that. So let’s go!”

“Go _where_? There’s _shooting_ out there.”

“I know, they’ve already surrounded the hospital. That’s why I came in so… uh, dramatically.” She nods towards the shattered window. 

“Who?”

“Who what?”

“Who surrounded the hospital? Who is shooting?”

Clara shrugs. “A mixture, I think, of Karabas forces and Keradish fighters.” She shakes off some more shards of glass. “I mean, we wanted to unite people, but this isn’t quite what we had in mind…”

“You’re mad.”

“No,” she says, “not yet, anyway. Are you coming or not?”

“Where are we going?”

“I told you already.”

“No… you really didn’t…”

“Ah. No, you are right. Sorry. It’s been a busy afternoon. The outer hull.”

“Through _Keradish_ land?”

“Yes, I think that’s what Kerala said. What?”

 _You really are mad_ , he doesn’t say again. “How did you plan to leave?”

“Same way I came in,” she says, almost smiling now, as she inclines her head to the shattered window. “Provided you’re willing to give me a lift, of course.”

 “You know it’s normally _illegal_ to fly outside of the aerial parks?”

“I suspect we might be breaking a few more rules between here and the lifeboats. Are you ready for that?”

Perchik unfurls his wings. “Oh yes,” he says, shaking out his flight feathers. 


End file.
